Seniority
by Serris
Summary: My late night musings on band...


_Seniority  
_By: Serris (Karen Walker)  
Dedicated to: SLWatson (Stephanie Watson, my sister)  
  
  
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I'll be a senior next year...  in fact, I'm a senior now.  God, what a wonderful thing it is to be able to say that I've made it through twelve years of living Hell in Niles, Ohio.  Looking back, though, I don't think I'd ever trade my existence in that Hell for anything that I could ever imagine in my lifetime -- not a million dollars, a fresh new car, a brand new house, or some sexy actor that'll live up to my every whim.  Why?  It's history.  
  
History... Webster's dictionary defines history as a tale or story.  Well, this is where my history begins:  Niles was not my home in the beginning.  In all honesty, I hated the dreadful place for year and years.  Probably close to five or six years, to be somewhat exact.  I wasn't an unhappy child before that, but I wasn't a particularly happy one either.  
  
It all started during my sister's freshman year.  Football season, marching band, music, sirens, life...  For Niles, football _is_ life on Friday nights, and even though I might not have seen that back then, I do now.  All I remember from those countless nights going to the games for my sister was learning the basics of football and watching the band.    
  
The band... something I never thought I'd find myself participating in.  As I approached my freshman year, grade by grade, I was sure that marching band would be something that I would be able to handle.  Missing half the summer, staying at school until late on Friday night, band trips, fundraisers, marching, practice, practice, practice...  I stayed with it though; joined the band my freshman year with my trusty trumpet and a little red braid given to me, through my sister, by the band President some time back.  
  
Of course, singing that little paper that confirmed me into high school band, was also my ticket to my first band performance, and coincidentally, the only time that I would ever be able to play on the same field as my sister.  Struthers vs. Niles and the "Fieldgoal Heard 'Round the World."  The game that changed my life; the game that showed me how much fun there was in losing your voice over seven silly, long, drawn seconds that ticked away in a flicker of light.  
  
Since then, life and band has had its ups and downs.  I got to know new friends and was allowed to be reacquainted with old friends.  Friends, yes...  There's always that lovely story of my friends, and one in particular.  Vincent Anthony Taylor, a wonderful friend who was brought back to me through band.  We had known each other one year before meeting up again -- back in kindergarten.  One year, and then eight to separate us, but it didn't take long for us to remember each other, and it was much, much too quickly afterwards that Vince was taken away from all of us.  A striking blow to be certain, and one I don't think I'll forget for the rest of my life.  
  
Other things come close to being so horrible for my heart, however.  Now that my sister has graduated, I know that she'll never be able to march with the band again.  At first, I didn't understand why she wouldn't come to see me play... why she couldn't.  I wanted her to see that I was a good bandsman; that I was on that field because of her, and because I wanted to make her proud.  It pains me now to know that I was so selfish.  
  
Looking back at how she left that field, I can't help but frown.  Why should someone have to leave something they love?  It's an injustice, from how I see it, but what can I do?  For the past three years, I've looked at Steff as if she was insane.  Why would someone insist that they left some of themselves on a silly field?  How could it mean so much?  
  
It does, though.  It means more than a person could ever accurately describe in words.  Pain, anger, suffering... everything imaginable, wrapped up in a few hours of football.  Why should these instruments mean so much?  Why should that uniform be a person's for more than four years?  Why should every second be something to live on.  
  
I'm a senior this year.  In a few weeks, I'll be starting summer band for the last time, and it scares me to death.  Why is it that I'm feeling like a piece of my heart's already been left behind on that field?  Why is it that more than three hundred days before my last performance, I'm sitting here, crying my eyes out?  Maybe it's because I've seen my sister cry over something that was probably never meant to be anything more than background sound.  Perhaps it's because I know that in less than a year, that band will play on without me -- I won't be there for Entrance, for run-on, for script Niles... for football.  "And the band played on..."  A quote I've become so familiar with that I just want to scream.  I don't want them to play on... I don't want them to leave without me.    
  
So, Steff... really, this one's for you.  I might not have realized before, but now I'm just sitting here at four o'clock in the morning with tears running down my cheeks because I realize that one day -- a day too soon -- I'll be marching my last football game.  I'll hear those drums for the last time and know with all probability that I may never be able to step into that stadium again, and for all true purposes, I'll know why you never could, and never should have.   
  
  



End file.
